Apache 1.2.4 is the current stable release. Users of Apache
1.2.3 and earlier should upgrade to this version. The next
release will be 1.3. A beta test release of 1.3 is available
now for both Unix and Windows 95/NT systems.

Bugs fixed in 1.3b4

These bugs have been found and fixed in 1.3b4.

Because of the major differences between Windows and Unix,
these are separated into bugs which affect Windows systems
only, and other bugs (which may affect Windows as well). Unix
users can ignore the bugs listed in the Windows section.

Windows-specific Bugs

After running a CGI program, Apache does not close all the
file handles it opened. This will eventually cause the
system to run out of file handles.

If a CGI script starts with #!, Apache uses the rest of
this line as an interpreter to run the script. This fails
if there are any spaces between the #! and the interpreter
path.

Other Bugs

Log file can contain garbage instead of the remote username
in authenticated area

If suexec cannot execute the target CGI it reports an error
but does not include the "errno" value which gives details
of what caused the problem.

Patches for bugs in Apache 1.2.4 may be made available in the
apply
to 1.2.4 directory on the Apache site. Some new features
and other unofficial patches are available in the 1.2
patches directory. For details of all previously reported
bugs, see the Apache bug database and
known
bugs pages. Also many common configuration questions are
answered in the Apache FAQ.

Development has slowed down to prepare for the release of
Apache 1.3. During the beta release cycle Apache is in a
"feature freeze" where no new features will be added. The
only changes from now on will be bug-fixes.

There has been some discussion about changing the name of the
Apache executable. At the moment, on Unix, the server binary
is called "httpd". This is largely for historical reasons.
When Apache was started, it was based on a product from NCSA
called "HTTPd". The executable for NCSA HTTPd was called
"httpd". Since Apache started out completely compatible with
NCSA HTTPd, it too was called httpd. The name has been the
same ever since, even though now Apache is considerably
different to the latest version of NCSA HTTPd.

Even though the name "httpd" no longer matches the product
name (Apache), it is still appropriate for Unix. It
implements the "HTTP" protocol, and the "d" means it is a
daemon (examples of other products which are named like this
include smtpd, named and ftpd).

The name of the executable on Windows, though, is
"apache.exe". Windows does not use the term daemon for
background processes, so the trailing "d" is not needed. And
there is no historical reason to call it "http".

Using different executable names on Windows and Unix is not a
problem, apart from documentation which is common to both
platforms. Various new naming schemes have been proposed
(such as "apache-httpd") to make the name meaningful and
consistent across platforms, but nothing has been decided so
far. The name of the executable may be changed for
Unix in the next beta release, but if so appropriate links
will be created so that scripts which expect it to be called
"httpd" will continue to work. Even if not changed for 1.3,
the name will probably change for the next major release
(2.0).